Overwatch: Pharah German Actress Replaced, Told By Fans

Overwatch has seen a lot of new content lately with patch 1.10 and the new Uprising event and it seems like some of the changes were not as well communicated as others. For example, although there was no announcement from Blizzard (at first), many Russian fans noticed that Pharah’s voice actress had changed with the patch. The fans took to the internet to discuss the stealth voice over change, where it seems that the voice actress herself learned about the switch from the fans.

Right now it appears that the voice actress who provided the German lines for Overwatch’sPharah, Ghadah Al-Akel, had her work removed from the game in patch 1.10. As fans started to get stirred up about the change on the official forums and Reddit, Blizzard responded to the buzz with the following statement…

“… Sometimes we cannot continue working with certain [voice actors] due to availability issues or similar unforeseen difficulties… we have such a case with the German version of Pharah.”

Blizzard certainly needs to do whatever makes sense to keep production of the game moving along, but the story gets more complicated when fans began to visit Al-Akel’s social media accounts and website and heard her side of the story. The voice actress seemed surprised by the news and explained that Blizzard had never reached out about the change and that she is willing and available to record new voices lines if needed. She went on in her post on her website to explain that she feels “a certain disrespect” about the way the situation has been handled.

Considering the drama and the fan attention the story is receiving, it would not be surprising to see Blizzard release another statement further explaining the situation or offering an olive branch to Al-Akel. We’ll continue to monitor the situation as it develops, so check back for updates.

What do you think of the Pharah voice actress change? Let us know in the comments.